I forgot to write this entry at the time so it will be briefer then my others.
After a 6-hour wait in Bangkok airport I finally made it to Chiang Mai and it was a relief to be in some fresh air after being imprisoned in the very average domestic Bangkok airport. It was latish so I took it easy and planned my next day, ate some dinner, chilled and got some well-needed rest after the madness of Hong Kong.
My first full day I wandered the streets and markets (like I seem to do a lot of my first day) to try get some new sunglasses and see what tasty street food I could get my hands on. Still plenty of time left in the day and I headed to Tiger Kingdom where I heard you were able to get in a play with tigers. For less then £20, I was driven there and back (30 minutes there and same back) put in a pen with 8 little baby tigers (approximately 3-6 months old) for around 20 minutes and had two people in there taking photos for me. It was awesome! They were so soft and cute and had massive paws and just so damn cool! I only played with one or two at a time, as they got pretty crazy when they were in bigger groups. Some of them were sleeping through and others were bouncing around, wrestling and having a good time. I got to cuddle them, rough and tumble with some, lie on some and just sit back and chill with some. It was a really cool thing to do! Night time I went to night markets and got some food and went home early as had a full day planned the following day.
A ride on elephant, a trek to a waterfall and swimming hole and then white water rafting down a river, that was my action packed second day. Elephant riding to be honest, I didn’t like too much as the elephants didn’t look happy and the mahouts didn’t look like they treated them with much love, they were just workers rather then sweet animals. The trek was only a couple of hours but through some pretty heavy bush and jungle area and crossing rivers on sketchy logs and climbing up muddy hills was pretty cool, and then washing off all the sweat and dirt in a freshwater swimming hole with a waterfall pounding down right behind you was pretty special. But the highlight of the day was definitely the white water rafting. Although the rapids were not crazy, there was still some pretty hairy parts that proved to be highly entertaining, and not to mention the scenery down the river was pretty spectacular.
That night I went and watched a Muay Thai fight with one of the guys and girls I met on the adventure day. In all honesty, it wasn’t the best fight night I have been to. Too many westerners with no idea or respect for the culture or the sport, who were just there to tick the box of seeing a Muay Thai fight in Thailand. The fights were ok, nothing too amazing but still entertaining, and the first fight was two kids who would of lucky to of been 6, which was pretty funny as the gloves were the size of their heads, and one fight that was for pure entertainment which had 6 or 7 guys in the ring, blindfolded and trying to hammer each other. This was hilarious, and the referee even copped a few blows from the blindfolded battlers.
And that was about it for Chiang Mai, I got up the next day and boarded my bus bound for Laos.
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